How to do IT Audit?

You must have a reliable, available and efficient IT park at all times: this is often the central element of your company, essential to productivity. Your information systems, infrastructure and security are constantly evolving as you expand your team, upgrade your fleet, or replace software or applications.

The problem is that it occurs in natural developmental stages and often lacks actual observation. Result: Failures, imbalances, failures or even security breaches are looming large over your business.

With audits, you take back control of risks and increase your productivity.

What is IT Audit?

IT Audit is the inventory of your IT. Its objective is to analyze and assess risks by identifying areas for improvement. It can examine all information systems, networks, applications and hardware.

Directly, the audit will map your entire IT infrastructure to emerge recommendations for development tailored to your objectives, means or needs, whether regarding security, data protection or compliance with applicable laws. Auditing can improve the efficiency of your systems, increase productivity and reduce your company’s “IT” budget.

Therefore this diagnosis combines technical control and advice provided by the specialist in charge of the audit to improve several points of the company.

Why do IT Audits?

Because the best way to make the right decisions needed to improve the growth of any business is to be aware of your strengths and weaknesses. In fact, whatever the condition or age of your IT equipment, it can always be improved, and that is in many aspects.

Auditing your IT offers several benefits: You’ll get to know your company’s IT better, and be able to assess the performance of its information systems and the equipment installed.

It is also an opportunity to define good practices and make strategic decisions that will boost the productivity of all your employees by tackling some “blocking” or “slowing” factors. In addition, it is quite possible that compliance, for example complying with the GDPR, may be required.

And finally, it’s time to do efficient and effective maintenance, which will reduce costs.

What are the Different Types of Audits?

1. Auditing Your Human Resources

This is unfortunately one of the least studied during an audit: the organizational and human aspects.

A lot can be learned from this audit and future problems can be prevented. First, it’s a question of questioning the personnel who work and use your company’s IT every day, to identify areas of improvement with them. They will inevitably make relevant comments on the subject and they will be taken into account.

Finally, a company should never find itself at the mercy of a key person’s resignation, just as an “in-house” framework should not hinder the recruitment of new developers.

It’s important that the transmission of good practices and business history (anything that doesn’t touch technology) can happen within your teams in a fluid and transparent manner.

So auditing your organization is both concerned with the personnel who use your computer system, but it also addresses the problem of consistency and access to information.

2. Auditing Your IT Infrastructure

The storage of your data, the hosting of your software, the links between the various software bricks, APIs and the rest… It wasn’t all done in a day, but today a stacking of successive layers may be perfect for the clarity of your information system .

Luckily, why aren’t there solutions to relieve maintenance, improve communication between different departments, and automate some boring tasks?

Auditing your IT infrastructure will make it possible to identify the points that are slowing down the functioning of your teams. It’s not a question of revolutionizing all of your IS at once, but a question of gradually improving the efficiency of your IT equipment while taking care to ensure a continuity plan, by guaranteeing that your team works well. Will adopt this new method.

3. Auditing Your Computer Code

The first risk, or the most clearly identified, pertains to a computer attack.

An inventory of your software and business applications will identify devices that have security vulnerabilities, that can be optimized or for which technical debt is significant.

4. Data Management Audit

Every business holds a huge amount of personal data, which is collected through various channels which is essential for the day-to-day functioning of your business.

Whether it is commercial data, or internal to company personnel, is this data secure and integrated within your information system? Is it possible (without a doubt…) to improve the security of the data collected?

Some data should only be accessible to certain people on your team. The audit allows you to analyze the tools you use and guide you in the application of GDPR legislation.

Should an external or internal audit be done?

So you have decided to do an IT audit of your company. The first decision is who to turn to: Will you conduct the audit internally, or will you pay an external auditor to do it for you?

There are several advantages to hiring an external audit firm:

The downside, this one takes, is that these companies are not cheap, and finding the right company can be difficult because the success of the project depends a lot on communication between the auditor and your company.

On the other hand, internal audits are easier, cheaper and can be done more frequently. However, the auditor may lack objectivity and may not have the necessary experience to conduct audits comprehensively.

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How to do IT Audit?

1. Interview with Employees

To conduct an audit, it is first necessary to define its objectives: this definition includes interviews with staff members. This way the auditor will understand the practices surrounding your IT and their expectations. The uses (and needs) to suggest potential areas of improvement will then be subject to the problems encountered.

As we have seen, it is also the first step in obtaining approval for new equipment or practices that may arise as a result of the audit.

2. Analysis and Testing of Hardware and Software

Obviously, it all starts with mapping everything that exists. This involves making an inventory of all the hardware and software used.

Then it will be necessary to see if they interact satisfactorily with each other, or if any nodes block or slow down productivity: the testing phase makes it possible to see all this, and possibly points for improvement. seeks.

This is also where the search for better security and compliance with existing laws is sought. It is also here that we will find out whether sensitive data is well managed, accessible only by authorized personnel, and whether everything is safe from cyberattacks.

3. Audit Report

The person in charge of the audit will write a full report on what they found, and what they identified as possible improvements.

This document is a synthesis of everything that works satisfactorily, but also what needs to be improved to achieve the objectives initially defined.

report Description:

• initial expectations,
• current context/position,
• Spotted Vulnerabilities (And Their Significance)
• And the solution should be considered.

This report should be as clear and understandable as possible, and should not be a purely technical document: IT audit reports have the annoying tendency to be too technical indeed. This makes them difficult to understand, especially for someone who is not an IT professional.

For an audit to be truly effective, the most important aspect of the report is to ensure that its findings are clearly understood, otherwise they cannot be implemented.

The fact that this will be a sufficiently complex and high level of detail anyway is why it is important that the commissioner of IT audit himself is able to fully understand the requirements.

Conclusion

Although an IT audit may seem like an unwanted and complicated exercise, it is actually an important and necessary task whose information is valuable.

When properly conducted, an IT audit provides your company with a detailed analysis of your existing systems and practices, allowing the identification of an area that needs further development. Most importantly, it will allow you to identify vulnerabilities in your system and take the necessary steps to prevent and control them. Instead of viewing IT audits as evaluations, view them as an opportunity to develop and improve your work practices.

Make sure the scope of the audit is clearly set out in advance, and allow sufficient time to complete the audit. Ensure that all comments in the audit report are fully understood, and that all recommendations are clearly explained, so that they can be easily implemented.

IT audit should be properly planned and it should be done by an honest auditor. If you do not have a sufficiently qualified internal auditor, consider enlisting external resources to assist you.